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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29044239">One of Those Nights</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzBaby466/pseuds/JazzBaby466'>JazzBaby466</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dublin Murder Squad Series - Tana French</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, Friendship/Love, Platonic Love, Platonic Relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:55:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,684</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29044239</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzBaby466/pseuds/JazzBaby466</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dublin Five are magic and have my whole heart. Consider these words a love letter.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>One of Those Nights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s one of those nights. The ones that feel like they should only happen to you once in a lifetime, and yet, they are continually bestowed on the five of us.</p>
<p>It starts out with wine and good food, the way most wonderful nights start out. Lamb chops and rosemary roasted potatoes, then vanilla pudding for desert. L. says how lucky we are to have such great cooks amongst us. I catch D. smile at his potatoes a few moments later, when L. is busy talking to R. Our eyes meet. I bite my lip, then break into a smile, too. I can’t help it. Not when I see him so happy about the compliment, so unwilling to let it show. Not when his hair is ever so slightly tousled and the top button of his shirt undone.</p>
<p>R. starts talking literature. The rest of us join in. J. pours the wine neatly, with caution. An hour later, R. pours it sloppily and we laugh. I catch J. frowning at the stains on the table cloth. Everything is soft-edged and funny and I poke him in the side and – I don’t remember what I say, but now he’s laughing, too.</p>
<p>L. is there, warm and squishy and radiant and full of life. “Let’s go outside!”, she says, and there’s no way any of us could object, not when her eyes are wide as a child’s, not when she grins that full-on grin, the one that makes you remember why being alive is worth it.</p>
<p>J. tries to get coats. “We’ll get cold”, he warns, but L.’s laugh turns that thought into mist that rises into the air and disappears. We won’t get cold, not tonight, not ever again. The air around us will be perfect from now on. It will be made for us, it will be ours. The road will rise to meet us and the sun will lead the way, and we will never be cold again.</p>
<p>The sky looks like a huge, dark blanket that has been sprinkled with specks of glitter by a pair of huge hands, carelessly and joyous. You look up at that ocean of sparkling lights and the longer you look, the more you see. And the more you see, the more you want to keep looking.</p>
<p>The moment of stillness seems to last forever, just the five of us staring into eternity. Even L. doesn’t move, just looks up, with her head tilted back and the starlight reflected in her pupils. The night air is gentle, like the hands of a friend.</p>
<p>R. has carried the bottle outside. When he refills my glass, he gives me that lopsided grin. I grin back, not sure whether the sloppiness is incidental or deliberate this time. Licking cool droplets off the back of my hand. Taking another sip, then handing the glass to D.</p>
<p>The spell of the stillness has been broken. I feel the wave of energy take over L.’s body as if it’s my own. The wind moves through my hair and it’s like I’ve moved it myself, ran my own fingers through the leaves of the trees and the grass on the ground; pausing on my way, to touch each of the others, briefly, tenderly. L. starts running onto the lawn and she makes a sound like a joyful howl. Curls flying, cheeks glowing, she could be anything: fawn or foal or wolf cub. Youthful energy and no thoughts of tomorrow, ever. Only now, and now is running and yelling and laughing. The night sky above her is a magnificent tent, and she’s a child playing underneath its protectiveness.</p>
<p>She turns and grins that grin, and she holds out her arms. To R.? Or to J.? Or to D. or myself? It doesn’t matter. The night takes us and makes us into one. We are interchangeable, the five of us. Alive inside each other as much as in ourselves.</p>
<p>J. goes, in the end, and L. grabs his hands and they start spinning each other around. Moonlight turns their hair white, makes them into fair folk, dancing on a clearing at midnight.</p>
<p>The rest of us watch; D. close behind me, the warmth of his chest against my back, while R. takes slow, appreciative sips of wine, the smile never quite leaving his lips. None of us have to say it, because all of us are thinking it: Beautiful.</p>
<p>“Come on”, L. yells. Her voice could have been a thought in my head. If there ever was a difference, it’s been lifted. I feel D.’s broad chest against my back and I feel my own shoulder blades where he has placed one hand. R. takes another sip and I feel cool glass against my own lips. J. spins on the lawn and<em> I</em> get dizzy. L. looks up and<em> I</em> see the black vastness sprinkled with those tiny twinkling lights.</p>
<p>“We’ll always have this”, D. whispers into my ear, and I could have said it, too. His thoughts are mine, and mine are his.</p>
<p>“Always”, I confirm, and I know that it’s true. Nights like this, they don’t ever really leave you again. My heart unfolds: an evening primrose that only opens up after sunset. And everything around me, summer air and smell of grass and smoke and D.’s breath on my cheek and R.’s quiet laughter next to me and J.’s yelps and L.’s giggles and an eternity of stars shining for us alone rush in and fill it to the brim and I know that this night will always be there because some things are simply made to last. Engravings on thousand year old stones. This night in my own heart.</p>
<p>“Look at this!” J.’s voice, full of wonder. L. and him are still moving in circles, still holding hands, but more slowly now. “It looks like…” He doesn’t have the words. He doesn’t need to. “Come try it!”, he says, and we do.</p>
<p>D.’s hands, so strong and warm. Socked feet on grass. I can feel every straw. Head tilted back, we spin slowly, and J. was right, it’s incredible. The light of each star runs into the neighbouring ones, and soon, the entire sky is light, and my entire head is dizziness, and my heart is joy, nothing but joy, like there was never anything else there, like it’s all been drained and replaced by this.</p>
<p>“I’m glad nobody can see us”, R. chuckles, and I laugh, because how could anybody see us? We are the only people in the world. There is nobody else.</p>
<p>And I reach up to ruffle R.’s hair, and J. reaches out to touch his hand to my cheek adoringly, and D.s arm rests on my back, and L. pokes R. in the side, and suddenly, on the ground underneath our feet, there runs a connection, like a golden thread, holy and never to be broken.</p>
<p>“Now that it’s summer, we should have more nights like this”, J. says and I laugh again, because I know in my heart that it will be summer forever. This ground will never turn icy, these flowers will never die. This summer is the beginning and the end of everything, and the summer has taken us in and made us its children and it could never abandon us.</p>
<p>“We will”, D. says and there’s a full smile on his face now. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t.”</p>
<p>And L. says there’s no reason why we shouldn’t just sleep outside, cuddling in the grass. And J. starts listing reasons why that is not a good idea, but they all sound so trivial, so meaningless. And R. tells him that he worries too much, and L. says that she’ll hold his hand and protect him from the wolves if he stays outside with her, and I can only laugh again, because we are the only wolves around, strong and resilient as anything, and we are no danger, because we are one pack. Safe from the rest. And nobody left behind.</p>
<p>There are more bits, but they blur into each other like those stars when you look at them while moving in slow circles. Details are meaningless. This night cannot be separated into fragments of time. It is one and it is whole. It’s a feeling, it’s an idea, it’s a melody. No part of it works on its own. But you look at its entirety and it all comes together.</p>
<p>Sometimes, only two of us talk. Sometimes, only one. It doesn’t matter. One voice for all.</p>
<p>Sometimes, we are on the grass. Sometimes, we are on benches. Sometimes, we are on blankets on the ground. It doesn’t matter. This house, this garden, this everything: ours, all ours.</p>
<p>Sometimes, we brush against each other. Sometimes, we reach out. Sometimes, we hold on and don’t let go for a long time. It doesn’t matter. Five bodies, no borders. Skin on skin like wind caressing the ocean’s surface.</p>
<p><em>I love us</em>, I think, and I would say it, but I know the others are already thinking it, too.</p>
<p>Outside of this pocket of time, moments come and moments go. There will be a morning and there will be mornings after that. But this night is forever. This night doesn’t know of beginnings or endings. This night simply is. And I know that at the end of it all, when names are gone, when I don’t even remember exactly when and where, I will still know the sound of L.’s laughter and the gentleness of J’s touch and the beauty of R.’s face and the strength of D.’s warm chest as I lean against him.</p>
<p>And I take a deep breath and look up at the stars and I take it all in, and I am thankful, because even if the world decides to take everything, it cannot take this. Because this night is ours, forever. Ours, all ours.</p>
<p>And if I die tonight, it doesn’t even matter. Because this night is immortal.</p>
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